Buenos Aires, Argentina

We came to Buenos Aires in mid-October via boat from Montevideo, narrowly escaping the clutches of mediocrity known as Uruguay. Err… we actually enjoyed Uruguay but like to joke about how much better pretty much every place else is (makes sense, right?). Anyways, If there’s one thing about Argentina that’s fairly obvious right now it’s the economic crisis they are currently in the middle of. That fact was made clear to us from our first Uber driver after getting off the boat. He laid out how he used to be a plumber/electrician but is now driving for Uber as people don’t have money for home repairs anymore. Another problem for him is the price of food quadrupling over the years and it being more difficult to feed his family. Even more, the unfavorable exchange rate for Argentinians makes it extremely costly to leave the country right now as the value of the peso has reduced by half in the last year alone.

After having this conversation and realizing the difficulty many Argentinians are facing right now it pains us to say the current economic conditions worked out extremely favorably for us as foreigners. We felt like kings and ended up eating out more than we probably should have because in the end cooking at home was hardly cheaper and eating out at nice restaurants for so cheap is a luxury we’ve never encountered before.

We spent our entire month in Buenos Aires in a neighborhood called Palermo, which is a super hip and lively neighborhood with an insane number of shops, restaurants, and bars. Although a ton of tourists stay there, it surprisingly never felt too touristy – perhaps because it is a really large neighborhood with millions of places, so in general it managed to retain a local vibe. We splurged a little initially and spent the first three weeks in a fairly shmancy pants studio on the 21st floor of a high-rise building in Palermo Soho. It had a small balcony with incredible views, and although it was small (there was a murphy bed), we loved it. We then spent the last 10 days in another studio nearby that was on the second floor of a smaller building and had a lovely terrace surrounded by trees.  

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Overall we were pretty obsessed with Buenos Aires. It quickly felt like home and in general was a really easy city to live in. It’s got a vibe reminiscent of the nice parts of Brooklyn at a fraction of the cost, and it had many of the things we love about NYC (i.e. amazing bars and restaurants, lots to do, lively atmosphere) without feeling as overwhelming or crowded. There were lots of nice parks, interesting architecture, and beautiful places to walk around, and people were super friendly. It also helped that people eat dinner so late (10 or 11 pm is normal). We would show up when restaurants open at 8 pm and manage to snag coveted tables at the best restaurants like pros.

In general people do things late in Buenos Aires. If you eat dinner before 8pm you’re insane, and if you go to a club before 1am nobody will be there and you’ll be openly mocked by the staff (basically). But alas, we had heard that the nightlife was worth checking out so we resolved to do just that and made two valiant efforts. As we no longer have confidence in our abilities to stay up until 5am without a nap, we elected for evening naps both times and woke up at around 10pm feeling rather annoyed at the fact that we were waking up at 10pm.

The first time we meticulously planned the evening: dinner at a hip small plate restobar (ugh, did we just type that?), drinks afterwards at a speakeasy where you need to solve a new puzzle for the password beforehand each week, and a dive club that we read plays electronic music we enjoy and isn’t super crowded. Phases 1 and 2 went flawlessly, and we were feeling way cool sipping fancy cocktails in our password-required-no-windows speakeasy. Unfortunately our enthusiasm faded pretty quickly when we arrived at our chosen club (Espacio Ro) around 2 am and saw that there were approximately 13 people there and nobody really dancing. We had a beer, declared ourselves spent, and went home at 3 am.

The second time we decided that eating dinner AFTER our nap was the thing that did us in (yeah right), and we elected to eat dinner then come home and nap. Again, we woke up mildly annoyed at 11pm (later this time. strategic) and killed time until we confidently made our way to Crobar, a much more popular club that also plays house and techno music we enjoy. Unfortunately, if Espacio Ro was too empty, Crobar was the opposite, and we felt quite dumb after paying too much money to enter and then figuring it out. We then proceeded to stand in the only non-crowded outdoor spot we could find and complained about how stupid crowded the place was for a while before going home feeling fairly defeated for a second time.

Thankfully we lucked out when one of our favorite DJs (Dixon) came to town and played at a daytime event that beautifully ended at 10 pm. We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly and left feeling on top of the world when we went to sleep at midnight.

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So, what else did we do? Buenos Aires is great walking city, so we spent most weekends walking around and exploring. Here are some of our highlights:

Recoleta cemetery. The cemetery is filled with narrow rows of large graves and statues honoring important Argentinians (including Eva Peron, former first lady). The crafts fair outside is also really nice, and Davy bought some fine leather goods, including a real adult wallet (they say travel makes you grow, right?).

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Teatro Colon. This is one of the most famous opera houses in the world. It took us a couple tries but we managed to get a tour of it and enjoyed imagining mingling with the bourgeoisie in the 1800s.

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Casa Rosada. The executive mansion and office of the President of Argentina. Unfortunately we were unable to get a tour of Casa Rosada, but we still enjoyed it from the outside. There is also Plaza de Mayo (outside of Casa Rosada), home to all of your favorite events in Argentinian history. There is a group of mothers that still march there to demand justice for the disappearance of thousands of Argentinians during the violent dictatorship of the 1970s. 

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El Ateneo. An incredible bookstore located inside of an old theater. It was definitely a unique surprise when walking around. We bought a few books in Spanish for practice (including a couple of our favorite Roald Dahl books) and headed on our way.

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Buenos Aires has a new trend known as puertas cerradas which are closed door, unmarked, and seemingly unregulated restaurants in somebody’s home that you need to schedule ahead of time. Shari did her diligence and managed to get us into a pretty spectacular one run by two fine gentlemen who cooked us up a delicious and unique five course meal. There was only one other couple there that night (because of cancellations), and for $22.50 each we felt like we were robbing them.

Meat. There was a lot of it.

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Outdoor bars. Swanky bars.

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The neighborhood of San Telmo was nice once we got away from the ultra crowded tourist street fair. It’s a particularly old part of the town filled with hidden shops, museums, and cobblestone streets.

Puerto Madero. A newly developed area by a man made river that offers a nice area for long walks.When we were there, the youth olympics were going on and we got to see the kiddos practicing for some freestyle kayaking event (don’t think that’s a real thing, but that’s what we wanted the event to be).

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MALBA and MACBA museums.

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Parks, Botanical garden, Japanese garden, and the Buenos Aires Ecological Reserve (a surprisingly large and undeveloped waterfront park by Puerto Madero where locals gather for long walks and river front picnics).

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All in all, we loved it here and hope to be back soon!! Thanks for reading!

SPICY BONUS PICS

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